


Winter In The Bones

by Morpheus626



Category: The Pacific (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-04
Updated: 2020-07-04
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:54:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25062712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morpheus626/pseuds/Morpheus626
Summary: Wrote this after a blizzard, and it shows lol. Sledge, Snafu, snow, and feelings.
Relationships: Merriell "Snafu" Shelton/Eugene Sledge
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6





	Winter In The Bones

**Author's Note:**

> Made a winter playlist while writing. It’s pretty Me-specific, but it might be cool to listen to while reading this for some of y’all too: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5eGIyIyDvKYhmpTicVn5Wr?si=1BX8YHrsTQ2hP-M8oGL5HQ

He wouldn’t call it good or bad, where they’d decided to travel to. It was, however, a definite choice he had made to take Snafu on a trip in December to a random state that they knew would assure them snow, purely so that they could experience a truly cold winter together. 

Which was why he was watching Snafu drop face first into huge drifts of snow in front of their rented two bedroom house in North Dakota, only to immediately emerge, giggling, before doing the same thing in a different drift of snow. For the first two hours, it hadn’t been a problem, but he was slightly worried about things like frost bite and hypothermia now, as the temperature dropped with the sun. 

He bundled up in what in retrospect would never have been a warm enough coat for the winter that greeted them their first day in the state with a snow storm, and headed out. 

“Havin’ fun?” 

“We gotta buy Ack Ack some of those shoes that guy at the gas station mentioned. He’d love playin’ out here,” Snafu grinned, snow falling out of his curls. 

Eugene thought of the dog, comfortable in front of the fireplace in the house, the cats all snuggled up beside him. “Maybe. Once the road is cleared out a bit, we’ll have to head out and see about it. In the meantime, how about coming inside for some coffee? You’ve got to be froze.” 

“I am, but I like it. Refreshing,” Snafu smiled. “Think the Pacific ruined me for heat. I can deal with it, don’t mind it back at home. But it feels so good to be in the cold. No goddamn crabs surviving in this, that’s for sure.” 

“True. But you’ll only survive so long in it too. I’ve got soup and coffee on, if you want to take a break.” 

“Sounds good. But only if you promise to come back out with me afterwards,” Snafu said, dropping one last time back first into a snow bank. 

“It’ll be pitch black out here by then. Shit, it’s only six now, and it’s dark,” Eugene replied. It didn’t help that they were out on the outskirts of the nearest town, where the city lights couldn’t pollute the sky. But that also meant that when it got dark, it got truly dark, the same sort of dark they’d seen while in their foxholes. A dark you could only see through after you’d been sitting in it for an hour, eyes struggling to adjust to it, jumping at every little sound until then. 

“I know, but that’s part of what makes it fun. What other time would you wanna go outside in the dark and fuck around?” 

“You have a good point. Alright then, you come inside and warm up, and I’ll come out after with you and freeze,” Eugene laughed as Snafu popped back up, flinging wet snow as he tromped over to hug him. “You are soaked through. Gonna take days to dry your clothes out, you know that, right?” 

“I do, and I couldn’t care less,” Snafu pressed a kiss to his cheek. “Because after we get back inside later, I don’t intend on spending any time in them, or you bein’ in yours.” 

“That sounds amazing, but for now let me get a towel,” Eugene pulled him inside, the snow crusted in Snafu’s hair and clothes started to melt as it hit the warm air of the house. 

Snafu ate that way, wrapped in towels, sitting near the door, refusing to even so much as take his boots off. “I do that, and you’ll say that’s a good enough reason to stay in. You haven’t had any fun out there in that mess yet, and you oughta.” 

Eugene sat beside him, getting up only to retrieve more of the soup the owners of the house had made up for them. A regional dish, called knoephla, that was essentially just a broth of mostly cream, and dough. But it seemed made for the cold weather, sitting warm in his stomach even as they stepped back outside into the snow. 

And he knew for sure it was truly very cold, with their hosts leaving them notes to mind the wind chill and how much colder it would make an already cold day feel. The wind chill as it was at that moment put them into the negatives. 

Yet he felt it less as Snafu pulled him close, then dragged him into a snow bank. 

“It’s so soft,” Snafu murmured. “If the temperature had been a little bit higher, it might have been ice instead, and it would hurt like hell to touch. Instead it’s this. What the hell.” 

“Glad it isn’t ice,” Eugene said. “Bad enough driving up here with it all over the road. Never been so happy to have as many weeks off as we do for this. Maybe by the time we go it’ll be melted some.” 

“I’ll drive, whether it is or isn’t. You drove us up here on it, only right I drive us back outta here,” Snafu sighed, cuddling against him. 

“Sounds good to me,” Eugene replied, pressing a kiss to Snafu’s forehead. His skin was icy cold, but he paid it no mind. He knew his was just as bad, since they’d been out for a good ten minutes, which was all it took with as much snow and cold as there was. He couldn’t imagine how silly it would have looked to anyone who might drive up, but despite the cold it was comfortable, huddling together, looking up to the night sky. The stars were visible out here, twinkling and brighter than he’d seen before. 

It was a moment he didn’t want to end, even as he found himself falling asleep somehow. He knew it couldn’t last forever, but he tried to embrace it, etch it into his mind, letting the cold preserve it. The feeling of the snow around them, the sound of the wind whistling in the few trees in the nearby tree row, the feeling of Snafu’s wool coat under his fingertips, the scent of the cold mixing with the familiar scent of Snafu. 

“We’d better get inside,” Snafu said softly. “You’re gonna fall asleep on me if we stay out any longer. Was gonna do more, maybe a snowman, but…so damn comfy just sittin’ here with you.” 

“We got three weeks left, plenty of time to do that. Maybe do this again. After we warm up from this time, at least.”

Snafu stood first, and pulled him from the snow bank. Snow fell off of them in clumps as they walked back to the house, ice cracking beneath their boots. 

Inside, they stripped right away, clothes and boots laid out on towels to dry near the front door. Snafu retrieved the blankets they’d brought from home to wrap up in, while Eugene made hot cocoa and checked the fireplace. The cats and dog wouldn’t (and as far as they were concerned, shouldn’t) give up their prime space right in front of it, but they shared it as they settled down, with warm blankets and mugs.

Eugene hoped the three weeks would pass slowly. He wanted more of it, craved the strange isolation of being out so far in the dark, cold feeling of nowhere, with only his husband and pets and no worries or responsibilities in sight. He was eager to take Snafu to bed, to warm him up in a way that would leave him gasping and moaning, to wake up beside him, cuddled close together so he could bury his nose in Snafu’s curls and breathe him in, take in each moment and hold it as tight as possible so none would slip away. To be childish and sweet outside together, making snowmen and running through the snow with no care for who might see or hear them. Retrieving what was left of their shattered innocence, and repairing it with the memories they’d make now. 

Outside, the winter wind howled, and he swore it sang of love.


End file.
